The polar temperatures and snow of Rome (and of central-southern Italy) these days should turn into rain in the coming days. With a Saturday in which in the afternoon they are expected around 10mm of rain and a variable temperature between 6°C and 12°C, the perturbations should be exhausted leaving Sunday morning at a full sun with a temperature around 8°C and a very light breeze less than 8km/h from NNE.
If it were really like that, it would be the ideal temperature for the second leg of the Italian Clubs race ralk Championship of 20km valid also, for Seniors and U20, as an Individual Italian Championship and selection to Taicang 2018.
For the Italian Clubs race walk Championship there will also be a race reserved to U18 on 10km (boys and girls) to which the organizers have added the first round of the National U16 Trophy of race walk on the distance of 6km (boys) and 4km (girls)
The ASD Kronos of Rome did a great job managing to bring to Rome over 200 athletes (to be precise, there are 234 entries) divided into the various categories:
- Senior men: 36 athletes
- Senior women: 26 athletes
- U20 men: 14 athletes
- U20 women: 13 athletes
- U18 boys: 33 athletes
- U18 girls: 29 athletes
- U16 boys: 30 athletes
- U16 girls: 53 athletes
In the two most important races, those of 20 km, there are all the top athletes of the current Italian race walk: from Giorgio Rubino to Massimo Stano, from Federico Tontodonati to Andrea Agrusti, from Leonardo dei Tos to Gianluca Picchiottino to finish with Matteo Giupponi, Michele Antonelli and Stefano Chiesa.
The only absent athlete of high interest is Francesco Fortunato who has instead scheduled the next 20km of Rio Maior
In the 20km women the victory should be the prerogative of Valentina Trapletti, if she will have disposed of the fatigue and the jet leg of the recent race in Monterrey where she behaved so well.
Absent Eleonora Anna Giorgi and Antonella Palmisano (which she has also scheduled as the next competition that of Rio Maior) the other positions of the podium should be reserved for a trio composed by Eleonora Dominici (1:33:32 personal best and season best 2017), Nicole Colombi (1:33:39, personal best 2016 and 1:35:55, season best 2017) and Martina Ansaldi (1:39:32 personal best and season best 2017)